WIXLIB

Thomas More and his UtopiaKarl KautskyHalaman 12militia could be raised contracted, leaving the kingdependent on an army of chivalry.The national and local princely power generally began onlyto raise its head again when the towns were sufficientlyconsolidated to afford it a firm support.2. The TownsThe local community formed the basis of the medievaltownship as well as of the village. It was commerce,especially with Italy, which gave the impulse to itsdevelopment. This commerce had never quite stopped afterthe downfall of the Roman Empire, even at the time of thegreatest convulsions. The peasants, at any rate, did notrequire it, as they produced themselves what they needed.But the squires, the higher nobility, the higher clergy createda demand for the products of a higher industry. The artisansattached to their courts could only partially satisfy this need.They were not capable of producing fine linen, ornaments,and the like, such as Italy supplied. From time to time theGerman nobles procured these treasures during pilgrimagesto Rome; but by the side of this a systematic commerce wasgrowing up, which was especially sustained in Germany afterthe tenth century by the silver mining in the Hart district.The silver mines of Goslar began to be worked in 950.At the courts of the secular lords, at the seats of the bishops,and at certain trade junctures, as where the roads from theAlpine passes touched the Rhine or the Danube, at protectedplaces in the interior of the country, which were accessible tolarge ships, such as Paris and London, depots for thewarehousing of goods soon came into existence, which,

Thomas More and his UtopiaKarl KautskyHalaman 13insignificant as they may seem to us to-day, yet aroused thecovetousness of the surrounding inhabitants and of foreignrobbers, Normans, Hungarians, etc. It became necessary tofortify them. Thus a start was given to the development ofthe town from a village.But even after the building of walls, agriculture andproduction for consumption within the limits of the localcommune remained the chief occupation of the inhabitantsof the fortified place. The commerce was too insignificant toalter its character. The town burghers remained as locallynarrow and exclusive as the village peasants.By the side of the old fully privileged families of the villagecommunity there arose in the meantime a new power, thatof the artisans, who organised themselves in associations, inguilds, after the example of the commune.Handicraft was not originally commodity production. Theartisan stood in a certain relation of service either to thelocal commune, or, as a retainer, to a feudal lord. Heproduced for the needs of the local commune or of the Courtto which he was attached, not for sale. Such artisans were, ofcourse, very numerous in the towns, especially such as werethe seats of bishops or the landed nobility. Other artisanswere attracted as trade developed, and a market for theproducts of industry was opened. The artisan was now nolonger obliged to work under a servile relationship. He couldbecome a free producer of commodities. The servile artisansin the towns endeavoured to shake off their obligations, andthose in the environs fled to the town when they thought itwould protect them.

Thomas More and his UtopiaKarl KautskyHalaman 14Handicraft grew apace; but it remained for the most partexcluded from the local commune and consequently fromthe government of the town; the latter being reserved for thedescendants of the original members of the villagecommunity, who developed from peasant communists intohaughty patricians. A class struggle between the guilds andthe old families set in, which generally ended with thecomplete victory of the former. At the same time a strugglewas going on to procure the independence of the town fromthe overlordship of the landed or provincial nobility, andthis independence was often achieved.In these struggles with the land-owning aristocracy thehandicraftsmen felt a certain sympathy with the peasants,who were striving for an alleviation of their feudal burdens.Not infrequently both classes acted together. A democraticand republican tendency among the lower burghers wasfostered by these struggles, but it did not entirely abolish theearlier exclusiveness of the village community, which wasmerely extended to the guild and the municipality.Handicraft commodity production at least broke down theexclusiveness of the urban community; the artisans workednot merely for the town, but also for the surroundingdistrict, often serving an extensive area; not so much for thepeasants, who continued to make for themselves almost allthey needed, as for their exploiters, the feudal lords, whohad lost the artisans attached to them. On the other hand,the artisans drew their means of life and raw materials fromthe country. The economic interactions, as well as theantagonism, between town and country began. By the side ofthe village community the town, with a larger or smallervicinage, tended to increase in importance as a second

Thomas More and his UtopiaKarl KautskyHalaman 15economic unit. The segregation of the individual towns,persisted, however, despite their permanent or temporaryassociation for common ends. The effect of this was toweaken, rather than strengthen, political cohesion, as therich and proud city republic achieved an independencewhich would have been quite impossible for the villagecommunities. They formed, by the side of the great feudallords, a new occasion for political disruption.With the aid of the towns, the power of the squires wasdirected against the nobility. Eventually, however, they werethreatened with the fate of being completely destroyed bytheir former allies. But this tendency only asserted itself to aslight extent; for within the towns was growing up a newpower which was to turn them into bulwarks of a rigidpolitical absolutism: the revolutionary power of mercantilecapital, which gave rise to world commerce.3. World Trade and AbsolutismAs we already know, the trade between Italy and theTeutonic North had never quite ceased, even after the fall ofthe Roman domination. It had founded the towns. But it wastoo weak, so long as it remained chiefly petty commerce, toimpart to them a special character. For some time to come,agriculture within the confines of the village communities,and later guild handicraft, occupied most of their energiesand determined their character.This was the case with many towns until the last century,and in some instances is even so to-day. But a number oftownships grew into larger towns, and thus became thepioneers of a new social order. Such were the towns which,

Thomas More and his UtopiaKarl KautskyHalaman 16owing to the special favour of historical and geographicalcircumstances, became centres for overseas trade, for worldcommerce.In medieval Europe, the overseas trade with the East firstdeveloped in Lower Italy, in Amalfi, where Greeks andSaracens came into conflict with the natives and afterwardsestablished trading relations with them. Much as the Easthad declined, it was infinitely superior to the West in artisticskill and technical knowledge. Not only had the primevalbranches of production been maintained there, but new oneshad grown up by their side, such as the production andpreparation of silk in the Greek Empire. Moreover, theIslamic migration of peoples had brought the highly civilisedcountries of the Far East, India and China, into much closercontact with Egypt and the seaboard countries of theMediterranean than was the case at the time of the Romandomination.In the eyes of the European barbarians, the treasuresdisplayed by the merchants of Amalfi were valuable beyondcompare. The greed to possess and acquire such treasuressoon seized all the ruling classes in Europe. It powerfullycontributed to those expeditions of plundering and conquestto the East which were known as the Crusades, but it alsoencouraged all the towns situated in a geographicallyfavourable position to participate in such a lucrativecommerce. First and foremost in North Italy.In course of time attempts were made to imitate theproducts of industry which were imported, especiallyweaving. Even in the thirteenth century we find silk-weavingsheds in Palermo, operated by Greek prisoners of war. In the

Thomas More and his UtopiaKarl KautskyHalaman 17fourteenth century similar weaving sheds were establishedin the towns of North Italy.Once the products were successfully imitated, the merchantssoon found it more profitable to import the raw material andhave it worked up at home by hired workers, provided theycould find free workers, workers whom no guild compulsionor feudal service prevented from offering their services, andwhom no ownership of means of production relieved fromthe necessity of selling their labour power.In this way the arts of manufacture arose, and thefoundations of the capitalist mode of production were laid.In More’s time, at the beginning of the sixteenth century,these beginnings were but faintly perceptible, and industrywas still chiefly under the control of guild handicraft. Capitalwas mainly merchant’s capital. But even in this form it wasalready exerting a disintegrating effect upon the feudal modeof production. The more the exchange of commoditiesdeveloped, the greater became the power of money. Moneywas the commodity which everyone took and everyoneneeded, for which one could receive everything, everythingwhich the feudal mode of production offered-personalservices, house and hearth, food and drink – as well asinnumerable articles which could not be produced under thefamily roof, articles the possession of which becameincreasingly necessary and which were not to be obtainedexcept with money. The classes engaged in acquiring money,producing or exchanging, attained to increasing importance.The guildmaster who, owing to the legally restricted numberof his journeymen, could only achieve moderate prosperitywas soon outpaced by the merchant whose appetite for profit

Thomas More and his UtopiaKarl KautskyHalaman 18was boundless, whose capital was capable of unlimitedexpansion, and whose trading profits were enormous.Merchant’s capital is the revolutionary economic force of thefourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It revitalisedsociety and provided men with fresh outlooks.In the Middle Ages we find a narrow particularism, aparochial outlook side by side with a cosmopolitanism whichcomprised the whole of Western Christendom. The feeling ofnationality was therefore very weak.The merchant cannot confine himself to a small district asthe peasant or artisan can. He wants the whole world inwhich to sell his goods. In contrast to the guild citizen, whomay never pass beyond the walls of his town, we find themerchant untiring in his journeys to unknown countries. Hepasses beyond the boundaries of Europe, and inaugurates anepoch of discoveries which culminates in revealing the searoute to India and the discovery of America, and which,strictly speaking, is still going on to-day.Even to-day it is the merchant who gives the impulse to mostvoyages of discovery, and not the scientific investigator. TheVenetian Marco Polo got as far as China even in thethirteenth century. Ten years after Marco Polo, an attemptwas made by daring Genoese to find a sea route to India byway of Africa, an undertaking which was to succeed twocenturies later. Of greater significance for the economicdevelopment was the opening of direct sea communicationfrom Italy to England and Holland, which was effected byGenoese and Venetians towards the end of the thirteenthcentury, and gave a strong impulse to capitalism in thesecountries of the North-West.

Thomas More and his UtopiaKarl KautskyHalaman 19Commerce put in place of local ties a cosmopolitan feelingwhich was at home wherever a profit could be earned. At thesame time it set up nationality against the universality of theChurch. World trade widened the horizon of the Westernpeoples far beyond the region of the Catholic Church, andsimultaneously narrowed it within the sphere of their ownnation.This sounds paradoxical, but it is easy to explain. The small,self-sufficing communities of the Middle Ages were scarcely,if at all, in economic antagonism with each other. Withinthese communities there were indeed antagonisms, but theoutside world was regarded with indifference, provided itdid not disturb the communities. For the great merchant, onthe other hand, it is not a matter of indifference whatrelations the community to which he belongs has to theoutside world. Trading profit arises from buying as cheapand selling as dear as possible. Profits largely depend uponthe relative strength of buyers and sellers. It is, of course,most profitable to find oneself in the pleasant position ofbeing able to take commodities from a commodity ownerwithout giving him any return. In fact, in its beginnings,trade is very often indistinguishable from piracy. We see thisin the Homeric poems, and we shall also see later that in. theEngland of the sixteenth century piracy was a favourite formof the “primitive accumulation” of capital and thereforeenjoyed State support.With trade, however, competition arose among buyers aswell as sellers. In the foreign market these antagonismsbecame national antagonisms. The conflict of interests, forexample, between the Genoese buyers and the Greek sellersin Constantinople, became a national antagonism. On the

Thomas More and his UtopiaKarl KautskyHalaman 20other hand, the conflict of interests between Genoese andVenetian merchants in the same market like-wise became anational antagonism. The stronger Genoa was as comparedboth with Venice and the Greek Empire, the more tradingprivileges it might expect in Constantinople. The greater andmore powerful was the homeland or the nation, the biggerwere the profits.The development of world trade therefore promoted apowerful economic interest, which tightened andconsolidated the loose textures of States, but also broughtabout their separation from each other and dividedChristendom into several sharply sundered nations.After the rise of world-wide commerce home tradecontributed equally to the strengthening of national States.By its nature trade tends to concentrate in certainemporiums, junctions where the roads of a large districtcoalesce. There the goods from abroad are collected, in orderto be distributed over the whole country by means of acomplicated network of roads. At the same junctions thehome commodities were collected in order to be despatchedabroad. The whole district dominated by such an entrepôtbecame an economic organism, whose ties became all thecloser, whose dependence upon the centre all the stronger,the more commodity production developed and supplantedproduction for use.From all parts of the district dominated by this centre peopleflocked thence; some intending to remain there, othersintending to return after the transaction of their business.The centre grew, it became a large town, in which wasconcentrated not only the economic life but also the

Thomas More and his UtopiaKarl KautskyHalaman 21intellectual life of the country which it dominated. Thelanguage of the town became the language of the merchantsand of cultivated persons. It tended to supplant Latin and tobecome the written language. But it also began to supplantthe peasant dialects; a national language came intoexistence.Political administration was adapted to the economicorganisation. This too was centralised, the political centralpower was installed at the centre of the economic life, andthe latter became the capital of the country, which it nowdominated not only economically but also politically.In this way the economic development brought into beingthe modern State, the national state with a homogeneouslanguage, a centralised administration, a capital.This course of development was frequently distorted, but atthe end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenthcenturies its trend may be distinctly perceived in the Statesof Western Europe, and perhaps all the more distinctlybecause at the time feudalism still greatly influenced theeconomic life, and by the force of tradition to a still greaterdegree governed the forms of the intellectual life.Assumptions taken for granted a few generations later hadthen still to assert their “right to existence” and likewise toimpugn the ancient institutions. The new economic,political, and intellectual tendency had to cut a path throughexisting conditions; it had to enter upon controversy, andconsequently its aim was often more sharply defined than inthe following century.It is noteworthy that the trend of development just describedwas bound to favour monarchy, or rather the power of the

Thomas More and his UtopiaKarl KautskyHalaman 22local prince, ill all places where he had preserved a remnantof strength. It was natural that the new political centralpower should cluster round the person of the local prince,and that he should form the head of the centralisedadministration and army. His interests and the interests ofcommerce were the same. The latter needed a reliablecaptain and a strong army, which, in accordance with thecharacter of the economic power whose interests it served,was hired for money. Commerce needed the army to assertits interests both at home and abroad: to defeat competingnations, to conquer markets, to burst the bonds with whichthe small communities inside the State fettered free trade, topolice the roads against the great and small feudal lords,who opposed a bold denial, not always of a theoreticalnature, to the right of property which commerce proclaimed.International intercourse also provided occasions for frictionbetween the various nations. Commercial wars became morefrequent and more violent. But every war increased thepower of the princes and made them more and moreabsolute.In the absence of a traditional princedom which thisdevelopment would have favoured, a frequent result was theabsolutism of the leaders of the mercenary hordes which theStates required, as in various republics of Northern Italy.But the new polity not only needed the prince as supremecaptain. It also needed him as the chief of the politicaladministration. The feudal administrative apparatus was inprocess of dissolution, the bureaucracy was as yet in itsinfancy. Political centralisation, which was an economicnecessity for commodity production at the incipient stage of

Thomas More and his UtopiaKarl KautskyHalaman 23the capitalist mode of production, needed at

Thomas More and his Utopia Karl Kautsky Halaman 3 PART II THOMAS MORE Chapter I. THOMAS MORE’S BIOGRAPHERS 1. Roper and Others 2. Erasmus of Rotterdam Chapter II. MORE AS HUMANIST 1. More’s Youth 2. More as Humanist Writer 3. More on Education and the Position of Women 4. More’s Relation to